Producing for consumption: Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games and Consumption Habits of Children and Adolescents

Abstract

The use of online video games is a widespread phenomenon worldwide. Studies on its incidence in children and adolescents move in two areas of research: those who find in these practices the development of cognitive skills, and those who consider that videogames lead to social withdrawal, competition and addictive behaviors. In addition, it is considered that it must be investigated the way consumption habits are created through the link. It is a matter of observing the ways in which children and adolescents acquire habits of consumption in the chiasm between "virtual world" and "real world". In this text, we expose how a virtual platform like Club Penguin converges tools, practices and incentives that create future consumers through children's practices, according to the logic of producing for consumption.